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No Big Reveal
Sequel to WE. ARE. KIDS. NEXT. DOOR. of Infopunk Earth. The last 10 months had been interesting, to say the least. The Recommissioning Module worked... sort of. At first, the grandmother's memories were restored perfectly, but the effects wore off after about a week. Restoring her memories repeatedly started to cause 'glitches' in her memory. That is, while none of her memories were altered, she started to recall KND-related events that hadn't happened as the device was used repeatedly, even recalling being a member of a previous iteration of the KND that I knew for a fact had never existed. To the point that she 'regained' skills she'd never had. Of course, this was a very gradual process, and she'd only gained the skills in the last couple months. The caretakers were more than a bit freaked out at her apparent swings between remembering everything, followed by brief spans where she could barely remember her own name. Naturally, this led to them catching us using the Recommissioning Module on her about about a month in. This led to attention being drawn to me, and by extension the KND. Specifically, the Recommissioning Module. People wanted to know if other Recommissioning Modules could be built to allow similar effects on people with lost memories all over the world. While the other Modules' effects tended to only last a couple days on Alzhemier's patients, and require multiple uses to fully restore the memories of amnesiacs, they worked just fine. Though the KND Sub-Sectors that had been discovered were too busy making more to do much else. As such, I'd waited another month for the heat to die down before contacting Sector E about arranging an audience with Arthur's ambassador. Just as well, I supposed, since the network had needed a little time to catch up with the spread of the Treehouses, which were making inroads into Russia, China, South America, the Middle East, and Africa, with much of Australia under Sector A's supervision. By the time I finally had the meeting, 6 months had passed since Brigith had arrived, and 5 since the KND had been established. I'd never expected to be attending a meeting with an elf, even if I wasn't there in person. Brigith POV Brigith arched an eyebrow in amusement at the minor enchanted 'videophone' and the youth of Britannia who'd brought it to her. "I take it your leader has a good reason he can't show up in person?" she asked her counterpart. She'd learned English in her time here, seeing as so few of these Britannians spoke Latin these days. She supposed she could take some comfort in the dominant language being named after a major component of this Britain's current holdings. "Our organization is mostly composed of children, and most adults have issues with children fighting. Of course, just because kids don't have weapons doesn't mean we can't get hurt by people who do, and that's part of why our organization exists. However, we aren't currently widespread enough that our leader feels entirely comfortable revealing us to the world, so we can't use flying vehicles just yet, which restricts our travel speed quite a bit. However, we were hoping your father would be more willing to let us set up semi-publicly. Speaking of which..." she flipped a switch and the videophone's screen lit up. "Hello, this is Brigith, ambassador of Arthur, King of the Britains, yes?" a blond-haired child of 14 or so asked. The background was a mix of natural wood, and boards made from harvested trees, as if someone had made a platform inside an immense tree. "Yes, it is, though I would like to know your name." Brigith answered. "Well, I go by Numbuh 123 as leader of the KND. I'm afraid you'll have to settle for that pseudonym. Partially because I've read too many stories where telling Fae your real name is a bad idea, and partly because I don't want you to have too much to give the various adult authorities if negotiations fall through." He said bluntly. She didn't quite have the heart to tell him she could find out his name pretty easily when he'd been so honest about hiding it. Even if it wouldn't be quit the same as hearing it from him personally. "That's more direct than I was expecting." Brigith admitted, blinking in some surprise. He was rather serious for a child his age. "I'm not really one for the 'subtle intricacies' of diplomacy. If you're going to say something, do your best not to make it offensive, but get to the point before one of you dies of old age." 123 responded. "I can do it, I just don't like it." He added, a clear attempt to cover up a potential weakness. She thought she got it now. A child who led a group of children was forced to act like an adult to get things done. While she thought that was cute, he'd probably take offense if she treated him like a child. "Hm, alright. Then I'll default to the direct method Fae used to make contracts when dealing with someone who proved troublesome to wear down. What do you want, and what can you offer in return?" Really, this was the basis of diplomacy, it was usually just less direct. "Well, we want to set up bases on your Earth. To that end, we want you to send over some PIPERS, which are basically radios enchanted with our particular brand of magic, so we can start recruiting agents from your Earth's children. The bases will show up on their own not long afterward if they follow the pattern they have here on Earth, so don't worry about providing them to us. In return, they'll serve as both a militia, who will work to suppress threats to the people, as children are included in 'people', and a special operations force meant to infiltrate and disrupt the operations of people we deem enemies, which will usually consist of people who I doubt your father would particularly like, anyway. Also, since people who lose their memories of being a KND operative don't entirely lose the skills associated with it, you'll have some 'talented' individuals available for recruitment a few years down the line. Here on Earth, we're already working to suppress some pretty nasty magical entities, and I'm sure you can always use some more hands to deal with that. Not to mention, if there's some kind of major threat, the bases we set up will be open to your own forces as strong-points and we'll co-ordinate on strategy. Major threats could be anything from a zombie apocalypse to a tyrannical megalomaniac invading, but we can hash out the details of what constitutes one later." He laid out what he likely thought was a pretty good deal. Maybe she should negotiate with children more often. This sort of directness was refreshing. "I'd like to know more about the 'KND' before I agree to anything." Brigith countered. Of course, she had to at least pretend to take him seriously. Though the fact that he'd managed to win the respect of these children was a point in his favor. "Well, in that case, I'll read you the preface of the Book of KND. Don't worry, it's not a religion, so your gods shouldn't have a problem with it." He replied, pulling the book out. It wasn't quite magical, though the indirect view dulled her senses in that regard, but there was power there. "Most of your Earth's citizens are reluctant to believe in the existence of any gods besides the Abrahamic one approximately half of them believe in." Brigith noted. That had caused a stir among the gods. "Magic, elves, Superman, all real. At this point, assuming the gods are real makes more sense. Anyway, here it is." he opened the book. "'There will always be those who seek to stamp down on others, but there will always be those who want to be free. But since adults will be a part of the problem as often as not, kids will have to stand up for themselves, fighting against the tyranny of people who think they know better than everyone else, or simply enjoy other people suffering. So, rise, kids everywhere! Fight back against the ones that try and keep you down, from schoolyard bullies, to world-conquerors. Even if it's your own parents, never give up the fight. Even if there's absolutely no chance of winning, keep fighting until the end! As long as a single person says 'NO!' hope is not lost! Never forget: WE. ARE. KIDS. NEXT. DOOR.'" A light came into his eyes as he spoke. That was the sort of gleam in the greatest of madmen, people who could change the world for the better or worse, and wholeheartedly believed it. A nearby Blue Lantern paused as their Ring spoke "Hope detected. Charging." Brigith had the impression that if she said no, this 'KND' would find a way to come to Rome either way, and they'd be a lot less friendly to the local authorities if they'd been refused. She also had the impression that 123 genuinely meant well, but, as most children did, didn't quite have the wisdom to see the full consequences of his actions. Keeping both of these things in mind, as well as the fact that her father was very unlikely to ever end up their list, she said "I think that would work out well for both of us. I'll need some time to set things up, of course." He grinned. "Excellent. We can handle the specifics later. We were probably going to find a way there pretty soon after we revealed ourselves, since space-faring technology is part of our tech-tree, but I wanted to at least try the nice way first. This is a lot quicker anyway." he admitted. Brigith gave a smile that was paradoxically reassured and unnerved, but nodded nonetheless. Children could often be easily lead by letting them think they'd won, and it made them happy. Of course she believed that the KND would genuinely try to do the right thing, but culture clash might be a problem. The distaste of this Earth for slavery, because they'd had such a bad history with it, for example. Still, they were unlikely to cause trouble on purpose. Particularly once the differences between Roman slavery and the type these children were familiar with became clear. 8 Months Later Quite a bit had changed over the past 8 months. The Fa-Earth KND had spread to the far corners of the Roman Empire, in part because we needed to take significantly less care in keeping ourselves hidden than we did on Infopunk Earth. Similarly, the Dieselpunk and Steampunk variants had spread to most of their respective globes, just as they had on Infopunk. Clockpunk-Earth was tricky, mostly due to the relatively primitive radios they were using limiting the number of kids we could actually contact to maybe 1 or 2 individuals, and being forced to slowly spread out from there. It took 2 months simply to set up the first sector on Clock-Earth. However, from there it spread exponentially, just like Diesel and Steam. We recruited heavily from minorities and girls on Steam and Diesel, and to a lesser degree on Clock. This let the KND move around pretty freely on those Earths, since as long as we stayed out of certain sections of town (which the sector would usually have a token majority member to deal with) or overtly drew attention to ourselves, we'd have little in the way of trouble or attention. Discrimination was actively sabotaging the suspicions of anyone who might have noticed the KND, since they tended to dismiss the notion out of hand. Well, Batman found out that there was a network of kids across Diesel-US pretty fast, but he'd mostly left the KND alone once he ascertained that our goals were more about freedom than causing chaos or mayhem (in fact we helped out in dealing with villains pretty often, even if the adults confined us to information-gathering most of the time) so we were reasonably certain we didn't have much to worry about there. Part of the reason it had taken so long to get this far on the other Earths was that KND tech had needed some modification to handle the technological realities of the less advanced Earths, and sometimes take advantage of their more common magi-tech. I'd spent a lot of my free time working on that, though the delays caused by the PIPERS being only a bit faster than light, which was thanks to the magic invested in them by virtue of being 2X4 technology, had made conversations frustratingly slow. The main problem was, a lot of the KND's tech didn't work as well, and the trees were slower to grow. Probably because the KND's show wasn't well known on other Earths. Once we got a head of steam among the locals it wasn't as bad, but it was doubtful our tech would be as effective on the other Earths any time soon. Heck, Fa-Earth had to make do with regular treehouses or even the attics of their houses, so I doubted we'd exactly be a powerful player in day-to-day life there. Between that and some advice from the operatives with with some degree of precognition, I didn't think we should become official any time soon. We'd certainly be a bit more overt, but we weren't going to announce our existence to the world. To that end, flying vehicles were officially allowed, though space travel was still highly restricted. While we certainly had tech for it, it would a) set off alarm bells for literally everyone if we had any major demonstrable space-capacity and b) making the vehicles airtight was difficult, and I wasn't going to risk a loss of cabin pressure in a vacuum if it wasn't a worldwide threat. It looked like the Moonbase was a long way off still. I was hoping to have the lunar tree growing by the time I was Decommissioned, but I was okay with what we'd accomplished so far. The KND was widespread enough to be extremely difficult to suppress wholesale, and considering I'd started with nothing but a dream and some hope, that was pretty impressive. Besides, I still had 10 months, that was almost as long as I'd been a KND operative. A lot could happen between now and then. In the mean time, we'd work behind the scenes, sabotaging the rays of mad scientists, making the chandelier fall at an inopportune moment and delay the scheme, etc. It was what we excelled at. Well, that and getting to difficult-to-reach places quickly. Author notes The KND isn't going to win a straight-up fight with the military. This organization's strengths lie in speed, mobility, and espionage. An operative's job is to take down villainous or in some manner abusive people, whether that be by blasting them into unconsciousness with weaponized condiments, or sabotaging one of their devices to give the good adults an opening. We're less likely to turn the tide than we are to tip the balance, but that's often all it takes. Category:Vignettes Category:Fanwork